Donald Trump Has a New Habit That Could Get Him Into Big Trouble

For many years, even before his entrance into politics, Donald Trump did not use email.

For someone as litigious as Donald Trump, he seemed to grasp relatively early on in the Internet era that anything he sent in an email could later be used against him in court.

Trump Loves to Text? 

Even as he often sent tweets from his phone that got him in trouble as president, Trump continued to not use email. But now, a report from early in the year says that Trump is now using text messages.

The former president “has, at last, become a texter, according to three people with knowledge of his new habit. His messages have recently shown up in the phones of surprised recipients, they said,” the Times said. It appears that Trump has taken up the habit for the first time in his mid-70s.

While Trump’s lack of texts in the past has made things more difficult for investigators in the various criminal probes targeting him, he has gotten into the habit around the new year. Of the texts, per the Times piece by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, “most of them described as innocuous, such as new year greetings or political observations.” This followed years of friends of Trump texting him and the texts going unanswered.

In addition, Donald Trump has also frequently chided his lawyers and advisers for taking notes in meetings.

“People who have worked for Mr. Trump in the White House and in his private business say he has prided himself on being ‘smart’ for leaving almost no documentation of his communications and discussions in meetings,” the Times report said. “That included snatching notes being taken in real time by a junior legal associate in his offices in the 1990s, when Mr. Trump spotted the man scribbling, according to a consultant working for him then.”

The Times also said that Trump’s “phone now sends calls that are not from numbers in his contacts to voice mail, according to two people familiar with the change.”

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Expertise and Experience: Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.